Commercial Real Estate Pro Network
Commercial Real Estate Professionals who work with Investors, Buyers and Sellers of Commercial Real Estate. We discuss todays opportunities, problems & solutions in Commercial Real Estate.
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BIGGEST RISK with Ashley Garner
12/23/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Ashley Garner
J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Ashley Garner, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Ashley Garner I think the biggest risk is to be under capitalized and and ultimately, you know, a property can go up in value, or the the P and L can show a profit, but if you don't have enough cash flow to pay the bills or make the repairs that you need to make, or make the improvements you need to make, then you you're in a tight spot, and that puts everything at risk, and that's an avoidable risk to not be under capitalized. But the temptation is so great a lot of times to say, I'm going to just manage this myself and save that money, or I'm going to turn units out of operations. I'm going to use the money from operations to improve units. And then, unfortunately, then a water leak happens, or something happens, and you need to do 10 at once. Well, you don't have enough money to do 10 at once, and now you can't rent them, and you're in trouble and so, but if you've got a nice. Just reserve pile of cash, so to speak. Then you you may not enjoy spending it all right now, but you can, and you can stay online, and you know you can survive. So being without enough capital is 100% in my opinion, the biggest risk. And I know that's not necessarily an insurance thing, but I know you didn't ask for just an insurer. I do. I do have a I do have a physical risk that i is my number one but, but the under capitalization is my biggest risk.
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Short Term Rentals Real Estate Investments with Kenny Bedwell - CRE PN #534
12/18/2025
Short Term Rentals Real Estate Investments with Kenny Bedwell - CRE PN #534
Today, my guest is Kenny Bedwell. Kenny Bedwell is a seasoned real estate investor and entrepreneur known for helping high income professionals identify and acquire short term rental properties that generate strong cash flow. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Kenny Bedwell about short term rentals versus boutique hotels.
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BIGGEST RISK with Kenny Bedwell
12/16/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Kenny Bedwell
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Kenny Bedwell, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Kenny Bedwell So you know, I the biggest risk. I think that this the answer I was going to give you originally, and I kind of talked about it, so I'll move on from it, but it's regulation. Regulation changes. You're in trouble that is a huge risk to any investment. But the risk that I don't really hear often talked about. In our space is actually safety, guest safety. So I'll give you a stat. This is a real stat by there's a there's a guy Justin Ford, he's a safety expert in a short term rental space, and guests are so people are more, 10 times more likely to have an accident in a short term rental than in a hotel. And so there is an inherent amount of risk with hosting people in a property, especially people on on vacation. 70% of people that go on that stay at short term rentals admitted that they like to, you know, drink when they're on vacation. There's nothing wrong with that, obviously, but like, 70% of people, adults who are going and staying in a property are going to drink it when alcohol is involved. And there's, you know, the that increases the chances and the risk of things happening. And I personally, too, I mean, I could go and do a whole story with you that we could do a whole nother podcast episode on where I've had, I've, I've been in lawsuits before, of short term rentals for slip and falls and other things where people were not being careful. And I swear to this day I would, I would love to get the data and the metrics on this, how low people's IQs drop when they go on vacation, because they drop pretty fast. It's crazy. Some of the questions I get where it's like, yeah, just, you know, turn that on, or press that button that says on, and you're good to go. You know, like, people don't really think critically when they're on vacation. And, I mean, why would you you're kind of putting that, you know, putting everything on pause and taking a break, but that increases risk of accidents actually happening. And so I know, I know, you know, you know, you kind of mentioned, like, oh, about it, you know, it's not about insurance, but for short term rental host, it really is. It is very, very, I'm a testament to this personally, it's very important that you get really good insurance, because that it can save you on a rainy day. And you also need to make sure that you have you work with your insurance company and know, you know, if you need to have extra signage or, you know, the the smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers, is, are they easily accessible? All of my fire extinguishers are mounted in places that you can visibly see. And I've got multiple I put extra safety things in all of my properties because it's just to protect people, because the likelihood of that happening is so much higher than just a long term rental or someone staying at a hotel. And so all these things are super critical. And you know, the last thing that you want this is really, this happens every single year. It happens. Find out, you know a child drowned in your pool. You know, that's a big lawsuit on your hands, and so it's so important that we have these protections, especially short term rental hosts and hotel owners as well, that that protect us in the event of any of these worst case scenarios happen, because they really do, and we can't, you know, turn a blind eye to that other people happen and say, Oh, that won't happen to me.
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Pro Storage Commercial Real Estate with Joe Downs - CRE PN #533
12/11/2025
Pro Storage Commercial Real Estate with Joe Downs - CRE PN #533
Today, my guest is Joe. Downs. Joe is a lifelong entrepreneur with business ventures spanning securities, mortgage, hospitality and real estate industries. He co founded the bell Rose group to pursue opportunities within the niche Self Storage sector of commercial real estate, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Joe downs about pro storage. What is it and why we need it.
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BIGGEST RISK with Joe Downs
12/09/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Joe Downs
J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Joe downs, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Joe Downs To me, it's, I'll give you, I'll give you, all right, you just want the biggest I'm gonna go right to base. To me, it's change. It's sort of what I just alluded to, if we were, if, if we still thought, because we weren't out there interviewing and investigating other third party management companies. If we refuse to do all that and just head in the sand, we would probably start falling behind other storage facilities, other competitors, who are managing their facilities better than we are. And the reason for that is because of technology. And I alluded to that earlier, and so that's just a small example, but to me, the biggest reason is AI. The single biggest reason is of change. The biggest change agent is AI. So if we're not, and you might say, What does aI have to do with storage everything? Because AI has AI can infiltrate if you allow it and choose to. And I highly suggest you do every, every part of your business in life, AI can have an impact on positive or negative. So you have to be, not only aware, you have to be in tune. So I I worry about, if you're asked, what keeps me up at night? It's not, we're well insured from an insurance standpoint, right? You know, I think when you're in commercial real estate, there's always that lender risk of a covenant and loan doc somewhere, you know, whatever. But that doesn't keep me up at night. It's because even then you could, you can negotiate, and you got attorneys to work you out of it. To me, it's falling behind the AI curve. And because that will directly impact how we find customers, how we source deals and pro storage, I'm using it not only to source locations for properties better and faster than we can do on our own. I'm we're creating a GPT right now to market to the businesses, the 17,000 businesses in Greenville, South Carolina, that are within 10 miles of our facility, that's, I don't think we've gone vertical yet. The grounds cleared and and I think they're, they're getting ready for pad sites. Maybe they started pouring. I haven't seen an update in last in a week, but we've got to fill that facility. So how are we going to do that before all the small bay flex guys get get the word out that they're putting that they're available to receive your business? Well, we came up with an ingenious way to create a GPT that's a relocator. So a GPT is just anyone can create them. If you learn how to win on chat, GBT, it's GPT is it stands for generative now I freeze when I put myself in the spot. Now I'm freezing generative performance transformer. No pre trained generative, pre trained transformer. So it's really just an engine. It's the greatest employee that you could ever have, right? It doesn't need to sleep, eat, take breaks, anything. It does what you tell it to do, but that's the key. It does what you tell it to do. If you don't tell it to do, it won't do it. So we have created a GPT that we will put out in front of every business market, to all the businesses out there and say, Hey, if you're say, Hey, if you're looking for space, here is a here's a simple tool that's free. Put in your name of your business, where you are, where you'd like to be, square foot, square footage you need for space in the entire Greenville market area. It will then, because we'll program it, go out, go on, crexie, loop, net, loop, net, everything. It'll find all the space that's available that meets the criteria for Darrin gross to move his ABC, XYZ widget business, because he's got 1000 square feet now, and he needs 2000 or he's got 500 or no square feet, and he needs something, right? It'll return those results for you, and included in it will be our facility with all kinds of unit sizes. So there is an example of how we're using AI, not only source the location, but also source the customers that will fill the location, right? So and that if we, if I was asleep at the wheel with AI, wouldn't have any of that, maybe I'd be successful regardless. I don't know. Maybe, if, maybe the if you build it, they will come. Principle would happen. I don't know, but I'm not willing to risk it. I'm not willing to risk it with my investors money. So the to me, it's, I'm I'm harnessing the power of AI. It is absolutely incredible. It keeps me up at night for good reasons. And I told you before the show, because it's like a drug. It literally, you know the saying, If you dream it, you can make it happen, or wherever that cliche is. This is literally, AI literally makes it happen. It's just up to you to program it. So I'm excited about it, even though you asked me what's what's a risk, the risk is not staying up with not learning it, not immersing yourself in AI, because if you don't I know everything, I just said, sounds cool and and proactive, but if I'm not proactive, someone else will be, and they might be, and I don't care what you're doing, what business you're in, someone who's doing what I doing, I'm doing, is going to have a direct effect on your business, probably to the negative if you don't not only get ahead of the curve, but keep up. So to me, that's the biggest risk. It's kind of that standing still and not evolving.
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Multifamily Leasing Strategy Training Courses with Peter Roisman - CRE PN #532
12/04/2025
Multifamily Leasing Strategy Training Courses with Peter Roisman - CRE PN #532
Today, my guest is Peter Roisman. Peter Roisman is the CO founding principal, President and CEO of REV, the multifamily leasing company, a Houston based venture established in 2019. Under his leadership, REV has become a trailblazer in multifamily leasing management and training, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Peter Roisman about leveraging data for improved multifamily leasing results.
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BIGGEST RISK with Peter Roisman
12/02/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Peter Roisman
J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Peter Roisman, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Peter Roisman Well, the biggest risk, in my mind, for besides physical property itself, is the occupancy and and and the rental rates. So if you have an underperforming leasing team. And your occupancy drops into the 80s, you know. And at one point, 15% of the properties in Houston were under 85% you're at risk. That is, that is a high risk, too. So in to flip that, to address that risk, you have to be high performing at leasing, which, which means you're not at risk at all. You're lowering or reducing or removing risk. If you're a stabilized property performing at a high level, leading your sub market, yeah, that that one, you can check off the risk. You can still have storms, you can still have the other things that happen on a property. But if your revenue streams are solid. You You should never have a financial risk that way.
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Infinite Banking Money Multiplier Method with Brent Kessler - CRE PN #531
11/27/2025
Infinite Banking Money Multiplier Method with Brent Kessler - CRE PN #531
Today, my guest is Brent Kessler. Brent Kessler was a chiropractor, and after implementing the money multiplier method, Brent paid off $984,711 in third party debt in 39 months, he became so passionate about how powerful this concept was, he began sharing it with others, and in just a minute, we're going to talk with Brent Kessler about Infinite Banking through the Money Multiplier Method.
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BIGGEST RISK with Brent Kessler
11/25/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Brent Kessler
J Darrin Gross And so if you're willing, I'd like to ask you. Brent Kessler, what is the biggest risk? Brent Kessler Yeah, well, let me answer it a couple different ways on there. But so as far as a risk, okay, as far as in our business, and what we do when you have this type of policy, I tell people all the time, there is no risk at all, because nobody's ever lost money in a whole life insurance policy. But then I stop, and I say, wait a minute, there is one risk. The risk is you, the risk is you the client and how you use the policy. So you're the only one that can screw this up. You are the only one that can screw this up. The insurance company is not going to screw it up. So who do you know better than you. So you're the risk factor now, as far as a risk also when I because, again, I invest in in properties. I have short term rentals, long term rentals, Airbnbs, vrbos. I have raw land. And I do a lot of private lending in the real estate world. I lend to individuals for houses, even to cars. And I also lend into big property developments and to big communities, to real estate developers where I'm providing a portion of their financing to build these big developments, like we got one right now going in Covington, Georgia, another one in Fort Collins, Colorado, where these are big housing projects, right? Well, look, I've been doing this quite a long time, and I've learned a lot as I've gone through this, and the one thing I've done to really lower the risk, because anytime you invest money, you invest money, you are assuming some sort of a risk, okay? So that's why the insurance policy that I talk about is not, is, is just not an investment, because you can't lose money. See an investment, it can go up or it could go down, right? So there's a risk involved. But I would say to avoid risk, that's your greatest at right, just as far as, especially as far as in the real estate world, is to be in first position in everything that you do, be in first position. How do I know that? Well, I've been in second position. Did it always work out? No, as a matter of fact, and I guess if I would have known you were going to ask me this question, I would have wore this shirt that I have, and it says, if you're not first, you're last. That's what my T shirt says. If you're not first, you're last. So I protect myself by being in first position. And I want the collateral on any money that I'm loaning. I want that collateral to be, I want that collateral to be at least equal to, if not greater than, the loan amount that I'm actually loaning. Now I might have to spend some time and energy going out and chasing down and trying to get that or get the collateral, which is going to be a pain in the butt, but you would much rather have the collateral than not have it. One more thing I want to point out from my own personal experience. A couple years ago, we experienced hurricane Ian. Part of my portfolio of rental property is in Captiva Island, Florida, North Captiva Florida. I own a property. If you go out and you take a look at it, just for a rental it's called Captiva Beach, sunset.com beautiful property sits right on the Gulf of Mexico, and it sleeps 18 people. It's all short term rental. It gets about 350,000 a year in the annual rental. I pay back in 21 I paid 1,760,000 for the property. I'm about to sell it. I'm about to sell it for a very discounted rate, because I'm selling it to my son, who is a property manager, and he's buying it for $2.4 million in January, he's getting a great discounted rate, even though I paid one, seven, selling it for two, four, I did okay. Got all the rental income on top of that when Hurricane Ian came through. So I had insurance on the property. It didn't flood, but it had wind damage. And let me just tell you, if you live in Florida, you guys know you probably don't even want to buy flood insurance because it's so expensive. And if it and it does, and it's a lot of limitations of what it covers, but I had wind insurance on that property. It took me a while, but I almost got a million dollars on my insurance claim from the damage on that property. Now, a lot of people think, Wow, a million dollars. You got a million dollars from the property. Well, that property was shut down for about two years, which means it couldn't be rented. I had to do all the renovations. Had to pay for that, had to pay for that all out of pocket, because it took a while for the insurance company to pay on that property. So did I really make money? No, I didn't make money. I did okay, but I didn't make money because I lost all that rental income. But, but I but, but, but I do think my lucky stars that I had insurance on that property, because if not, I would have taken all of that hit.
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Commercial Real Estate Market Cycle with Travis Watts - CRE PN #530
11/20/2025
Commercial Real Estate Market Cycle with Travis Watts - CRE PN #530
Today, my guest is Travis Watts. Travis is a multifamily apartment investor, public speaker and the Director of Investor Development at Ashcroft Capital. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Travis Watts about Lessons Learned Through the Market Cycle 2022 to 2025.
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BIGGEST RISK with Travis Watts 2025
11/18/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Travis Watts 2025
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Travis Watts, What is the BIGGEST RISK? Travis Watts I would say, in 25 we talked a lot about market and rates and the discounts, and you know why we're bullish, or why I'm bullish on multifamily, I would say it's more than ever. It's the operator that you're about to invest with. Okay, do they have a lot of distress on their books? Are they losing properties currently? Are they not? Not that any single answer to that is like a red flag and rule them out. But you want to dive a little deeper and make sure that they're dedicated to staying in this business. Because what we've seen is a lot of these student deals and programs and things, folks that got involved in 21 and 22 doing their very first deals are some of them are walking away from the business. You know, they gave it a few years. They're not making money. They're leaving it behind to do something else, and they're for selling properties or they're foreclosing. So you just want to be, you know, up on your due diligence with is this operator going to going to survive this storm, and do they have the dedication to stay in the sector, you know, for the next 510, years, whatever the business plan is for the deal you're looking at.
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Affordable Housing Public-Private Partnerships with Danielle Ash - CRE PN #529
11/13/2025
Affordable Housing Public-Private Partnerships with Danielle Ash - CRE PN #529
Today, my guest is Danielle Ash. Danielle Ash is a partner in the real estate group and co chair of the ground leases practice as well as the impact practice at Adler & Stachenfeld, a law firm based in New York that is solely focused on real estate. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Danielle Ash about Demystifying the Reality of Affordable Housing Returns and Risk Profiles.
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BIGGEST RISK with Danielle Ash
11/11/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Danielle Ash
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Danielle Ash, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Danielle Ash Well, I'm going to give a self serving answer, and then I'm going to give more of an investor based type answer. So the self serving answer, I think, is, you know, people come to me from all different sectors of real estate and at all different parts of their career, from early stage developers, sponsors to, you know, super high net worth sovereign wealth funds, who've been investing for 50 plus years. And I do think one of the biggest mistakes or risks that people face is not having good counsel involved in their transactions, having transactional counsel who has the combination of wanting to explain the risk to you and able to do it in a way that you understand, and also not getting in the way of the transaction Just to look smart or kind of win the point. You know, there's a balance of trying to identify risk and be creative about how do we structure around that risk? How do we get you the protections you need? How do we think about all the different ways that bad things could happen and you need to address? And how do you help your investors? Protect your investors in the long run through those but at the same time, what good is it if you can't close the deal right and knowing the difference between what risk is worth cutting the deal over and what risk is something that you can find a mitigation for? So that's on the self serving side, because you know, all the time I see attorneys who aren't really doing that extra work, or where clients come to me and they they've done a deal, and they didn't see this issue before, and now they're facing it, and they need real explanation as to, like, why we have to think about it on the investor side, I will say that, you know, just thinking about policy for a second. Now, there's been a lot of change in policy at the federal level, at state levels, everywhere right now, it's a bit of a crazy time for trying to follow what's happening. And while there has been a lot of great gains for, you know, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit for changes in that policy, I do think that, and I'm borrowing this from one of my clients, Sharif Mitchell, at Northern Liberties, that the risk of a lot of those policies is actually on the populations being served by affordable housing. And we don't always think about those sort of tertiary elements. We don't always think about the fact that, you know, they still have to put food on the table, that they have to figure out how they're going to get you know their children to school, you know that they have to commute. All those costs come into play, and what we've seen over the last few years with a lot of affordable housing, especially coming out of covid, is you have a lot of high arrears issues coming up, because tenants have to choose, do I pay my rent, or do I feed my kids? And when you have policies that make those potential decisions harder, or where they're losing potential benefits, you know, in some states, it's very hard to get your tenants out for non payment, and so a lot of them are going to take the risk that, you know, maybe I'm just going to feed my kids instead. And so I do think that's something important to think about. That when you're putting together a capital stack, you're looking at the population, you're figuring out, how are you going to serve that population, how you're going to work with those people to ensure that they have the capacity, they have the other resources they need to stay in that housing is that really is going to impact the value of your asset in the long term as well?
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Flexible Workspace Solves Human Interaction Need with Mark Goldfinger - CRE PN #528
11/06/2025
Flexible Workspace Solves Human Interaction Need with Mark Goldfinger - CRE PN #528
Today, my guest is Mark Goldfinger. Mark Goldfinger is the General Manager Head of North America at Mindspace, a global flexible workspace provider that redefines the workplace experience for companies of all sizes, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Mark Goldfinger about flexible workspace solutions.
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BIGGEST RISK with Mark Goldfinger
11/04/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Mark Goldfinger
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Mark Goldfinger, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Mark Goldfinger I think it's great question. I think in the co working ecosystem, or in the flexible office space, you know, ecosystem, I think one of the biggest risks is landlords starting to take on the opportunity to create their own turnkey sublet solutions for smaller companies, and kind of take business from us. Now, I don't think that they're able to really run the hospitality arm that we are, because that's not their business, and we put a lot of pride into that. But I think that's definitely one thing we look at. I think the other thing is really looking at, you know, do people continue to believe in human interaction and being back in the office environment with people, and I think as long as they are willing to agree that that is really valuable, then I think we can continue to run and drive this business and agree that the sky is the limit.
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Non-Performing Loan Real Estate Investment Litigation Strategy with Chris Zona - CRE PN #527
10/30/2025
Non-Performing Loan Real Estate Investment Litigation Strategy with Chris Zona - CRE PN #527
Today, my guest is Chris Zona. Chris Zona is a partner at Mandelbaum Barrett PC in New York, and a trial attorney specializing in Complex Commercial Litigation, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Chris Zona about Turning Conflict into Capital Litigation as a Real Estate Investment Tool.
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BIGGEST RISK with Chris Zona
10/28/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Chris Zona
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Chris Zona, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Chris Zona Sure. So I think it really fits within what we're talking about. I think the biggest risk for investors that are in this this realm is that you need to be comfortable with taking over a potential non performing note, right? Like there is no way to avoid risk when you're making this sort of play. So what you need to do is kind of, you know, balance minimizing the risk through your diligence process, because you don't want to take on something that you're not ready to you don't want to overextend in taking it on, and then kind of balance that with the, you know, maximize your return on whatever risk, wherever in the risk matrix that you fall right, they always say higher risk, higher returns. Was very true. You know, if you're going to buy a very, very non performing loan, you're going to be, you know, probably up on the tier of of the extension of capital, and you need to mitigate whatever risk, make sure that you have a cap stack in place to do that you don't want to take on additional debt in order to kind of engage in that strategy, because now you're becoming another note holder as well as being the Enforcer. And then make sure that on the back end, that you're prepared for whatever the downside of your investment is, and that your investors, if you're running a management that you're openly communicating with them, timeline and the potential downfall, as you've said, there's the nice thing about this strategy is, if you're not a very, very specific strategy fund or investor, you can minimize the downside by how you enter and what your exit looks like. If you're flexible in what your exit looks like, then this could be a very attractive strategy, because you know, if you don't need to exit the property and return your to your investors capital within a short period of time, then maybe you can stay in that property longer, hopeful, hope that the note holder turns it around.
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Long Term Benefits of Commercial Real Estate with Travis King - CRE PN #526
10/23/2025
Long Term Benefits of Commercial Real Estate with Travis King - CRE PN #526
Today, my guest is Travis King. Travis is the founder and CEO of Realm, where he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the organization with a particular focus on culture, strategy and investments.
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BIGGEST RISK with Travis King
10/21/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Travis King
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Travis King, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Travis King It's a great question. It's actually really hard to try to encapsulate it in one thing, so maybe I might give a multifaceted answer, if that's okay with you. One thing I would say that is paramount in real estate, and I alluded to it earlier, is the only real way I know to lose money in real estate is to lever inappropriately. So leverage at the end of the day, that's how you lose control of your properties, right? And that happens. So then I you peel that onion a little bit and say, Okay, well, how does that happen? Right? How do you run into problems there? And I think there's two main areas that I would focus on as kind of sub points. Number one is going to be making sure that you're checking your assumptions and making sure that they stand up in a lot of alternative scenarios you might not have considered, right? A perfect example was back in, remember, during the housing bubble of of 2008 when everything popped, they realized at one point that there was no way to even show you know, potential negative drop in housing values, right? That's a great example of just a a glaring error of saying, Well, you got to be able to test some of your assumptions. And I think you really need to beat them up and test them under old under ultimate scenarios that could happen. Black Swans do happen, right? And I think that sometimes it doesn't even need to be a black swan. And we've seen things where we've preached to folks over and over to say, in multifamily as an example, if you were to go through and change your rents just by 10 or 15% on a multifamily property. And then, you know, the cap rates move, you know, a little bit. You know, you have cap rates move 50 basis point because the markets in a little bit of turmoil, right? And your occupancy gets hit by five 10% just all these things are fairly small changes. It could be 15 to 20% of the value of the property. So if you're if you're buying something, you know, that's very highly leveraged, you could find yourself in a very difficult position very quickly. The second thing I would say is be careful who you're doing business with. A lot of times it really comes down to making sure you have the right partners. Some of the biggest problems I've seen happen are are doing business with the wrong people. And I think that that's where you run into problem, regardless of what your dollar of what your documents might say. If you're not dealing with trustworthy people that are putting integrity first and foremost, that's an easy way to get into trouble. So eyes wide open on who you work with. Do your do your background checks, talk to people, get references, referrals. Move slowly. I think you do those two things together and stay conservative in your capital structure. You avoid, you avoid a lot of pitfalls.
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Self Storage Development Process with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg - CRE PN #525
10/16/2025
Self Storage Development Process with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg - CRE PN #525
Today, my guests are Bill Kannatas and Ben Salzberg with Self Storage Developers. And just a minute, we're going to speak with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg about Self Storage from Dirt to Doors.
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BIGGEST RISK with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg
10/14/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Bill Kanatas I look at two different risks, one as an investor slash investment, and one is a developer slash development. Um, so if we're talking about the development aspect first, because, as I mentioned earlier, Ben and I spend our money up front first, before we go to the investors looking for their money, we do a lot of work upfront to mitigate that risk, and in any development, nothing ever goes perfect, as much as we think it's going to be great. It's not going to rain tomorrow. We're going to have sunshine for three weeks, and the bulldozers will be out there, and all sudden, we get rain for three weeks, and the holes we just dug flood, right? So you gotta be able to have that in your underwriting. Right? So when I tell somebody it's going to be 10 to 12 months, you know, I underwrite it 14 months, in case we have an additional four months of interest reserve or operational losses. So we try to mitigate all that risk upfront. When you're looking as an investor, slash investment. Then, you know, the advice I always give to my own friends is look at the first let's start with the development team, right? Do they know how to develop you know, whatever it is, is it a Starbucks? Is it self storage? Is it car washes? Make sure you're right with the right development team, or make sure they have experience, obviously. Make sure that you believe in the area. You know. Is there a reason to put one in Bosie, Idaho, or is there one to put it one in Manhattan, you know? Is there a demand for self storage? And then who's operating it? Is it the Bill and Ben show? Or is it, you know, an operator who knows what they're doing? Is it the first time they're operating? Or do they have, you know, billions of dollars of annual revenue in this space? So I think there's various checklists to kind of mitigate that risk. And then at some point you gotta say, I'm all in and and dive in and know that if there is any problems, your partners will communicate that with you, right? Because it's very, very important to always have communication, you know, with your lender, with your investor, with your general contractor, with the village. You know, Benz, an elected official. And when you're working with the communities, you have to perform. You can't tell them one thing and do something else, right? So communication for me is always the best, Ben Salzberg And then I agree with you on that bill, you know, making sure the constituents in the area, which are mine and that they're they like what we're building and developing in the community, and to mitigate that risk of any type of Fallout, of people being frustrated, being built self storage in the neighborhood, um, you know, that's that, that risk. And of course, then there's, you know, you want to make sure that the job is insured in case somebody gets hurt, you know. And that goes with you Darrin, you know, you have to, you know, PNC, make sure that it's everybody's covered.
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Commercial Real Estate Technology Infusion with Philippe Lanier - CRE PN #524
10/09/2025
Commercial Real Estate Technology Infusion with Philippe Lanier - CRE PN #524
Today, my guest is Philippe Lanier. Philippe Lanier is the principal at East Bank Inc, a DC based developer with 2 million plus square feet of trophy office, luxury retail and residential assets in the greater DC region. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Philippe Lanier about commercial real estate's evolving intersection with technology and culture.
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BIGGEST RISK with Philippe Lanier
10/07/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Philippe Lanier
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Philippe Lanier, what is the biggest risk? Philippe Lanier Just to answer, because you gave me a little bit of a chain, one of the first important steps sitting in my feet. And to simplify for your audience, if you are an owner, you are an owner of real estate, is to recognize that the world changed and you lost a lot of money, and not bury your head in the sand. The value was fundamentally changed, and it's not coming back. And once you can emotionally get over that, you know, then you're then you're thinking about how to apply what I know and what I have left to rebuild it and to create something great. And that's where we are right now. I think the worst is in theory over and then, how do we reassess where we are as owners, what we've had lost, and how do we build something new? The you know, the biggest risk is if you haven't absorbed that, but you think that help is around the corner, if you run out of time, then you're out of the game. If the banks foreclose, then you've lost all sweat equity. It's very difficult to start again. So to make sure, you put yourself in a position where you're not hoping for a situation to change. Imagine that interest rates away may maintain high for a while. Imagine that this stuff is not going to get easier for longer. Make sure that you're you're running a company that doesn't, you know, lose money every month in salaries. That might mean you have to let some people go that that's just where we. Are. And then, then you solve for the risk of of things not getting better. And then, and then, yeah, then you, you just work hard and build the pain is real, but I love the the advice to, you know, say, Just admit it, and, you know, go forward from there, as opposed to keep looking for the the silver bullet, or, you know, something that's going to come and save the day, because that, that is, that's, that's really wise.
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ADA Lawsuits and Commercial Real Estate with Josh Bauchner - CRE PN #523
10/02/2025
ADA Lawsuits and Commercial Real Estate with Josh Bauchner - CRE PN #523
Today, my guest is Josh Bauchner. Josh is a partner in the landlord tenant and litigation practices at Mandelbaum Barrett PC in New York. He brings a depth of experience and dedication to his practice, where he's involved in complex commercial litigation and class action lawsuits, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Josh Bauchner about the Nuisance ADA Lawsuits.
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BIGGEST RISK with Josh Bauchner
09/30/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Josh Bauchner
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Josh Bauchner, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Josh Bauchner Well, the biggest risk here is getting sued by one of these serial plaintiffs, with one of these attorneys who's just in it for for the fees. To answer your question, I think ADA compliance planning, bringing in one of these testers, like we discussed, to assess the premises and make any determinations as to what's not compliant, then do an assessment as to what the cost would be to potentially bring it into compliance. Is it something that you could readily do, putting up the handlebars in the bathroom stall, for example, perhaps changing the front entrance door to provide handicap accessibility, or is it cost prohibitive? If the bathroom is downstairs and you can install an elevator, there's really no way around that to gain access. And then the challenge becomes with respect to shifting that burden, the landlords are doing that right. So in most lease agreements, most commercial lease agreements, the landlords are including an indemnification obligation where they're shifting the burden onto the tenant to both ensure compliance, remediate the premises in the absence of compliance, and if sued, pay for the landlord's fees and costs. It challenges again, the tenant doesn't necessarily recognize that obligation in Louise when they're signing on, and they certainly don't recognize what the costs that they're at risk of incurring are going to be if they are sued. And so unless they're a really big business, you know, $100,000 hit to your bottom line could put you out of business, and then again, it becomes the domino effect. Great. So now they are out of business. They've shut down. They've got six more years on their lease term. They vacated the premises. Now the landlord suing the tenant because they've reached the lease the landlord has to find the new tenant to mitigate it just creates a whole host of unintended consequences, all because, again, these serial filers think they're doing right,
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The ROI of Art in Commercial Real Estate with Jennifer Brener Seay - CRE PN #522
09/25/2025
The ROI of Art in Commercial Real Estate with Jennifer Brener Seay - CRE PN #522
Today, my guest is Jennifer Brener Seay. If you're a developer who wants your projects to become more than just buildings, today's episode is for you. Jennifer Brener Seay is the founder and CEO of Art Plus Artisans, who's rewriting the playbook on real estate development by transforming commercial real estate. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Jennifer Brener Seay about the ROI of Art.
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BIGGEST RISK with Jennifer Brener Seay
09/23/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Jennifer Brener Seay
J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Jennifer Brener Seay, What is the BIGGEST RISK? Jennifer Brener Seay So I'm going to give you two Darrin, one of the biggest risks, I think, is just having solid contracts, and the contracts are there to protect you from all different kinds of risks. So, you know, we're a small business. We've been in business for for 23 years. I think for a long time, I had a very simple contract that I don't think was probably protecting me from what could go wrong. And it was actually a real estate developer friend of mine, as we were going after and winning these bigger and bigger projects, you know, 15 floor ground up brand new builds, and we were going to be installing huge sculptures, he was like, You need a better contract. You need a better contract than this. So we really have worked to strengthen our contracts, to protect us, to protect the artists, to protect the clients, and in addition to that, or as a risk to the business and the economy, I, as a business owner, have never really focused on one vertical, because I got lucky in the 2008 recession that I had just taken on a big our first really big higher education project and our first Assisted Living Project, when kind of everything was hitting the fan at that time and corporate was falling apart. And it really showed me that in a business as niche as mine, I need to. To be diverse in the kinds of projects that we take on. So if one sector is having a hard time, we do not have all of our eggs in that basket. So we we work in in all areas of commercial real estate and with different kinds of companies and different industries to protect ourselves from things in the economy that I have no control over.
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Industrial Outdoor Storage Investment Strategy with Blake Rodgers - CRE PN #521
09/18/2025
Industrial Outdoor Storage Investment Strategy with Blake Rodgers - CRE PN #521
Today, my guest is Blake Rogers. Blake Rogers is the co founder at Steel Peak Properties. Steel Peak is a Southern California based real estate investment firm focused on acquiring and improving industrial outdoor storage assets throughout the western US, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Blake Rogers about outdoor storage properties.
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BIGGEST RISK with Blake Rogers
09/16/2025
BIGGEST RISK with Blake Rogers
J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Blake Rogers, What is the BIGGEST RISK? Blake Rodgers Sure. So I think in in our space, we say this all the time to to our investors, because they ask us this question as well, what? What's, what do you think the biggest risk is here, guys with this asset class? For us, it's really, since we're buying single tenant deals. I think it's the single tenant nature of these deals. We're buying vacant sites a lot of the time. So the risk for us is you either lease it or you don't, and you either do it in the amount of time that you said you would or you don't. So that, I think that for us is just being hyper focused on, you know, how long is it going to take us to do this. What are all the other, you know, properties in this market leasing for making sure we have all the data and that we're and we're underwriting the amount of time that we need to to lease these up, and that we're buying a product that these tenants want, and that's not going to sit there for a long time, because that's, that's the way that, the way that we can really get hurt, but we can control this risk, though, this isn't, you know, just like a macro risk. A lot of guys in our space got hurt pretty bad four or five years ago when interest rates went crazy during covid, and so that was a huge risk, and some of those guys just didn't foresee that coming. And so that's that's one thing, but for what we can control in buying these types of properties, it's really determining how long do we have to lease this and making sure that we we execute on that business plan.
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Commercial Real Estate Financing Options with George Otel - CRE PN #520
09/11/2025
Commercial Real Estate Financing Options with George Otel - CRE PN #520
Today, my guest is George Otel. George is the seasoned entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience in real estate and finance, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with George Otel about business finance.
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